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In office

On Monday 3 December 2007 Kevin Rudd became Australia’s 26th head of government. He was only the second whose oath of office swore allegiance to the nation, not to the head of state. In omitting mention of Queen Elizabeth II, he followed the lead of Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating nearly 20 years before. And like Paul Keating, it was Kevin Rudd and not the Labor Caucus who chose the new ministers.

But it was still the Queen’s representative, Governor-General Sir Michael Jeffrey, who created the new government. Swearing in the 20 new Cabinet members, 10 other ministers, and 12 parliamentary secretaries, the Governor-General explained the power delegated to him by the Crown to recognise those with the majority of seats in the House of Representatives as the new government.

Climate change

When it took office on 3 December 2007, Kevin Rudd’s government's first official act was the same day, signing the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement by United Nations member countries to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Australia and the United States had been the only member nations which had not ratified this international instrument for climate control, passed 10 years before. The following week, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Climate Change Penny Wong, Environment Minister Peter Garrett and Treasurer Wayne Swan attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali.

Kevin Rudd at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia, December 2007.

AUSPIC, Michael Jones

The importance of climate change dominated Kevin Rudd’s term in office. Following the tabling of The Garnaut Climate Change Review in 2008, an independent study commissioned from adviser Ross Garnaut, climate change replaced terrorism as a dominant global issue for the Rudd government.

But within the first year there was another more urgent issue: the global financial crisis - dubbed the GFC. During this period the government negotiated Coalition support with compensation terms for electricity generators, totalling $7.3 billion over 10 years. When the Bill was introduced into the Senate in 2009, both the targets and the industry compensation terms of the scheme were opposed by the Greens and defeated by their Senate votes three times. With the Opposition rejecting any emissions trading scheme, the government failed to make progress on this policy priority.

The Apology

The opening of Australia's 42nd Parliament on 13 February 2008 was the first to be preceded by a welcome to country, when Ngambri elder Matilda House performed this ceremony in Parliament House. The same day there was another first, when the Prime Minister led an apology in the Australian Parliament to Indigenous people, for the 'profound grief, suffering and loss' caused by past policies, particularly the policy of removing children from their families.

Together with Opposition leader Brendan Nelson, the Prime Minister received a gift from Indigenous leaders acknowledging the apology. The historic event was televised not only to large crowds gathered outside Parliament House in Canberra but also to those assembled at special outdoor screens in cities and remote communities in every state and territory. Inside the House of Representatives and at outside venues around Australia the Prime Minister’s speech brought tears, cheers and standing ovations.

The government’s pledge to reduce the high mortality rate of Indigenous people was a key policy with wide support and ongoing challenges, especially in arresting mortality rates of adults in Indigenous communities.

Kevin Rudd and Opposition leader Brendan Nelson in the House of Representatives for the Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples, 13 February 2008.

AUSPIC, David Foote

People watch the Prime Minister's speech on the big screen at Federation Square, Melbourne, 13 February 2008.

Virginia Murdoch

International relations

As well as attending the Bali climate change conference in December 2007, in his first four months in office Prime Minister Kevin Rudd visited East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with the Prime Minister of East Timor Xanana Gusmao and his wife Kirsty Sword Gusmao, Dili.

AUSPIC, Michael Jones

In March and April 2008, he and his wife Thérèse Rein set out on a three-week round-the-world tour to five countries, meeting US President George Bush in Washington and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in New York. They went on to Brussels where the Prime Minister attended an economic forum. Engagements in London included an audience with the Queen at Windsor Castle, meetings with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband, and a speech at the London School of Economics.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with United States President George W. Bush in Washington, DC, April 2008.

AUSPIC, David Foote

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd hands over the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon.

AUSPIC, Michael Jones

Their trip concluded with a visit to China that included meetings with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao. The Australian Prime Minister attracted international media coverage as the only western leader to express concern in China about the country’s role in Tibet and human rights abuses there. Most widely reported was his 'zhengyou' speech to students at Beijing University, where he linked two key figures in recent Chinese political history, 20th-century writer and dissident Lu Xun and leading 19th-century thinker Kang Youwei, with 7th-century intellectual Wei Zheng as exemplars of the need for reasoned criticism. While the press in some regional countries wrote of this as presumptuous for a western leader, China's official newsagency Xinhua reported that 'eyes lit up' at the reference to 'friendship based on speaking the truth'.

Kevin Rudd and Thérèse Rein with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, 2008.

AUSPIC, David Foote

In June 2008 Kevin Rudd and Thérèse Rein visited Indonesia, for meetings with President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono, and to open a primary school in Banda Aceh, one of the projects undertaken with the Australian aid provided by the Coalition government of John Howard following the tsunami in 2004. The same month the couple made an official trip to Japan, visiting the shrine at Hiroshima. The Prime Minister returned to Tokyo the following month for the G8 summit, and in August returned to Beijing for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games. At the end of September he was again in New York where he addressed the UN General Assembly and lobbied for a Security Council seat for Australia. Although he was expected to speak on climate change, the Prime Minister used the occasion to urge united action on the global financial crisis.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, June 2008.

AUSPIC, Michael Jones

This intensive program of overseas engagements was repeated the following year. The Prime Minister's 2009 itinerary included visits to the United States in March to meet new US President Barack Obama and to Italy for the G8 climate change talks, and an audience at the Vatican with Pope Benedict, during the final process leading to the canonisation of the first Australian saint, Mary Mackillop, on 14 October 2010.

In September Kevin Rudd was in the United States for the G20 Summit, and he also delivered a video address to the UN General Assembly on the vital importance of urgent worldwide action on climate change. As in his UN speech the previous year, he also made a case for a Security Council seat for Australia.

In October Kevin Rudd was in Thailand for the ASEAN meeting and the following month again in Washington for discussions on climate change and on Australia's ongoing contribution to the NATO presence in Afghanistan with US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. From the United States he travelled to Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference where he gave a rousing call to world leaders to 'strike a grand bargain'. They did not; the accord reached fell far short of target goals and strategies.

Of Kevin Rudd’s 31 months in office, roughly seven months were spent travelling overseas, prompting comment about his heavy emphasis on international relations and his frequent absences from Australia. The total absence for the period was actually less than that of some other prime ministers, including the longest serving, Robert Menzies.

The global financial crisis

When Kevin Rudd addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2008 he departed from the intended subject of climate change to speak instead on the deepening global financial crisis. With this speech he launched the case for a new world alliance, the G20, now regarded as a key development in global governance. The G20 became as he urged, a 'pivotal body in world financial affairs'.

The G20 was formed in response to the worldwide economic reversal that developed from late 2007. The GFC has been assessed as 'the greatest regulatory failure in modern history'. It was a major challenge for the governments of all the developed nations. In Australia the Rudd government's response included planning an economic stimulus package. Launched in October 2008, it was the first of any affected nation. This action and with follow-up strategies meant expenditure of some $75 billion on a nation-building recovery plan that included a public works construction program and federal guarantee of bank deposits. The total expenditure on the stimulus package represented the highest proportion of GDP of any of the advanced economies. An IMF survey in 2009 showed that Australia was the only one of 33 major national economies to avoid a crippling recession.

The social democratic state offers the best guarantee of preserving the productive capacity of properly regulated productive markets, while ensuring government is the regulator, that government is the funder or provider of public goods and that government offsets the inevitable inequalities of the market with a commitment to fairness for all.

While the response of the Rudd government earned acclaim, the speed of design and implementation of the stimulus initiatives meant that not all were equally successful. Some projects within the school building program were later shown to have been wasteful, while the major project geared both to stimulus and climate, the ‘pink batt’ roof insulation program, drew strong criticism for ineffective design, poor results, and dangerous practices by unskilled installers.

Fair Work Legislation

Employment practices were a key policy area of the Rudd government, and initiatives were introduced in his government’s first year. Replacing parts of the Howard government’s industrial relations system was given priority. The passage of the Fair Work legislation through Parliament removed the Work Choices program which had been an equally prominent reform of John Howard’s government. From 1 January 2010 the new standards applied to all federal employees at all income levels.

The Prime Minister at the government's second Community Cabinet Meeting, Narangba Valley State High School in south-east Queensland, 2 March 2008.

AUSPIC, Mark Graham

Public Participation

The Rudd government introduced two initiatives to enhance public participation in government: a 'travelling Cabinet' with meetings held around Australia and the 2020 Australia Summit, where 1000 participants gathered at Parliament House on 19–20 April 2008 to generate ideas and strategies in key areas such as climate change, water, international security, health and Indigenous Australia.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the official opening of the Australia 2020 Summit, Canberra, 19 April 2008.

AUSPIC, Howard Moffatt

Though few of the ideas generated at the Summit were implemented by the Rudd government, an important exception was the review of Australia’s taxation system. In 2009 Treasurer Wayne Swan established a review team headed by Treasury head Ken Henry. The Henry report, released on 2 May 2010, included a new ‘super-profits’ mining tax to fund increased superannuation contributions, one of the strategies towards a ‘simpler and fairer’ tax system.

The opposition of the mining industry to the super profits tax, added to the credibility gap that opened with the abandonment of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme announced the previous month, was reflected in the media and opinion polling.

On 24 June 2010 Kevin Rudd became one of the few leaders to be removed by their own party in their first term as prime minister. He was not the first. Robert Menzies’ first term had also ended in the bitter disappointment of withdrawal of his party’s support in August 1941. Nor was Kevin Rudd’s 2½ year term in office brief in comparison with those of his predecessors. Robert Menzies’ first term was even less – nearly 3 months short of Kevin Rudd’s. In fact, only 10 of Australia’s prime ministers remained in office more than three years.

Of the 16 short-term prime ministers, three went on to gain a later prime ministership – Alfred Deakin, Andrew Fisher and, of course, Australia’s longest serving prime minister, Robert Menzies.